Matthew 7:15-16 (ESV)
[15] “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing
but inwardly are ravenous wolves. [16] You will recognize them by
their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
This is not a test of whether a person is a Christian, but whether a person
is a false prophet. But that raises the question, what is bad fruit? What are
thornbushes and thistles? To answer that, we need to remember that Jesus has
just had a long conversation about external holiness versus internal holiness. To
Jesus, bad fruit is the external “holiness” of the Pharisees that fails to
produce internal holiness, even excuses internal unholiness while promoting
external conformation. The bad fruit Jesus is referring to here is legalism.
Hearts can never be changed from the outside in. True gospel transformation is
from the inside out. Teachers who emphasize external holiness as the way to be right
with God fail to understand that simple truth. External holiness is good. But
external holiness divorced from internal, heart transformation is not holiness.
It is conformity.
Certainly, there are other bad fruits besides a focus on external holiness. Beware
of false prophets who promote other errors that Jesus addressed in these chapters.
Prayer as a formula to manipulate God is contrary to Jesus’s teaching. Teachers
who accumulate wealth for themselves off the backs of those they serve is
contrary to God’s teaching. The fruit of these teachings also reveal false
teachers. When the fruit of one’s teaching is church members seeking the right
formulas to get what they want, that’s a sign that the teaching has been deficient
at best. When we see people in churches seeking wealth and health more than
holiness, that is a sign of wrong teaching.
A focus on external holiness, formulaic prayers, and health and wealth are
all examples of bad fruit as Jesus defined it in these chapters. Yet we fall
for these teachings so often. They appeal to the flesh. They make promises they
can’t deliver, yet we buy into them. What they deliver is more wealth for the
teachers, more power and manipulation by the teachers, more prestige and
importance attached to the teachers. What they do not produce is true holiness,
let alone earthly ease.
But notice that these are not all the same teachers. There are some who
promote external holiness without falling into the error of health and wealth
or manipulative prayer. There are others who promote manipulative prayers or health
and wealth without the emphasis on external holiness. These are not all big
names, nor well-known teachers. Our temptation is to point to a couple celebrity
preachers, blame them, and then justify ourselves. But we need to ask ourselves
the question, Have I fallen into some of these false teachings as well? It is
easy to do. Beware of false teachers and false teachings. Make sure that you
life and your teaching is grounded on the solid rock of Jesus’s teaching.
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